Obituary of Margie McGinley

Our mom passed away comfortably at St. Peter's hospital in the early morning of November 26. She had been lovingly cared for at a local adult family home for nearly three years due to advanced dementia which left her unable to live independently. We miss her already but know she is finally free from the restrictions afflicting her body and mind the past several years.

 

Margie Ann Ritzman was born on June 4, 1937, at the Alexander homestead farmhouse in Churches Ferry, North Dakota to her parents Lester and Rosella. She has one younger brother, Lester Thomas Ritzman Jr.   She married Hugh Jamison McGinley on November 7, 1957, in Casper, Wyoming. They had two children, Laurie and Christi, during their marriage.

 

Margie spent summers on the Alexander farm where she loved riding the big farm horses and playing with the calves. She spent much time with her beloved Grandma Ritzman who was the matron at the Odd Fellows Hall (nursing home) in Devil's Lake, North Dakota.

 

She loved art and drawing, particularly horses and fanciful abstracts. She finished her AA degree at Claremore College in Oklahoma and her B.A. degree at the age of 76 at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She was the oldest to graduate that year. She was a lifelong learner and advocate for others to pursue their education.

 

As a young adult, Margie worked as a drafts person in Casper, Wyoming. Later she worked as a teacher's aide for the high school art department in Dayton, Washington, and as a secretary and clerical assistant in her later years.

 

Always interested in current affairs, though not always able to actively engage in it as she might have liked, in her later years she became more actively involved in local, state, and national politics and loved to take part in conversation with family and friends talking about what it all meant.

 

She clearly loved her family and came to depend on them immensely as her dementia and immobility took away her independence. We are lucky to have had these last several years to care for her, learn more about her, and love her in ways we didn’t know we could.

 

She is survived by her her brother, Lester Thomas Ritzman, Jr., daughters, Laurie McGinley and Christi McGinley, stepdaughter Terri Greenslade, grandson, Cody Buck, granddaughter, Sarah Hill, great granddaughter, Kimber Schultz, and great grandson Max Jamison Buck.

 

If you'd like to celebrate Mom's life, we know she'd be overjoyed if you donated to a local charity that supports any of the causes she was so passionate about in life, including art, education, and women's empowerment.

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